Star Trek Into Darkness

[Drunk Monk]

It's cheesey, totally overdone, heavy-handed in every way, Kirk and Khan are so over-the-top, and there are so many bloopers (most obvious is the constantly shifting blood stain on Kirk's chest) but I still love it. The nebula battle is absurd (two-dimensional? in space? srsly?) but it still works as one of the greatest cinematic starship battles ever. The idea the Genesis can sprout fully grown trees in a matter of minutes is just crazy, but who cares? It's got Star Trek heart. I still get misty when Spock dies.

Worthy of note - the version of Space Seed that I saw on netflix had digitally enhanced starship sequences. I was like "Daaaaaaaaang, those old effects still look good. Oh wait..."

[Drunk Monk]

I watched ID again, just to complete the examination. It still amuses me. It's colorful, funny and lots of things blow up. There's a batleth fight, which isn't quite as entertaining as the sword fight like in the first J.J.s reboot, but still counts. It occurred to me that J.J. really only sought to remake WoK with these two reboots. He only slightly touches on the rest of the ST mythos - all of it could be drawn just from WoK. I found that Sherlock really didn't work as Khan for me. Montalban owned that role and like with the other redux characters, J.J. should have sought out someone that could mimic Montalban better and let go of all the silly secrecy he had buzzed about as the film approached release.

I'm beginning to wonder if J.J.s Star Wars 7 will just be an Empire Strikes Back redux now.

[Drunk Monk]

I watched ID again with S & T. S was entertained as she's not too much into ST, but she did comment that it felt more like Star Wars that ST. T, who has only seen a smattering of ST enjoyed it thoroughly, especially Scotty.

It got T & I motivated to watch the Triple Tribble Trouble trilogy - the three tribble episodes across the original series, the funimation cartoon series and DS9. T likes tribbles. The original is still awesome, of course, and it was a lot about Scotty which worked for T. Still kinda weirded out by the enhanced spaceship effects though. The cartoon is great writing but horrid animation, so bad T was mocking it. I didn't realize that it was penned by Gerrold and originally submitted for season 3 of the original series (that's what the web sez). The DS9 episode is clever, although I didn't follow DS9 at all, so I don't really know what's up with the characters. It was the only ST series I didn't tune into.

[Drunk Monk]

S thought Odo in DS9 talked like CF. It took me a moment, but I see what she means.

[cranefly]

Gene said:
S thought Odo in DS9 talked like CF. It took me a moment, but I see what she means.

It's all about morphing the vocal chords rather than vibrating them.

[Dr. Ivor Yeti]

It's all about morphing the vocal chords rather than vibrating them.

Seems legit.

[Drunk Monk]

Watched Day of the Dove last night. Great episode because of the sword fights. Still very enjoyable. Still kinda trippin on the improved starship effects.

[Drunk Monk]

Best Kirk vs. Spock fight in the series. Cool medieval vulcan weapons. T'Pau was super awesome and T'Pring was the original vulcan hottie. Don't know about Ston tho - he seems more Romulan.

They added this scene of Spock, Kirk and McCoy hiking to the ceremonial grounds. It was a distant CGI shot where you could see the three in silhouette against the extreme Vulcan landscape.

The updated effects are really working for me. And the original show still rocks.

[thatguy]

The ST-TOS re-used a lot of their music, but I don't recall them ever reusing the awesome AmokTime music.

[youtube]_dnZHea_TI0[/youtube]

--tg

[Drunk Monk]

I find myself watching the original series again for those aforementioned new effects, cherry picking episodes that have more spaceships like The Tholian Web (where the new Tholian ships look like ships and not just blunt wedges), the Doomsday Machine (where the Doomsday machine now looks like a doomsday machine and not a paper mache cornucopia) and that one with the M5 computer where Federation starships really have a go at each other. Great stuff man. Luv it.

[youtube]oIfNv9qLvy4[/youtube]

[Drunk Monk]

I wound up watching an episode of Voyager because a friend had a role as a back-up dancer. It was The Thaw, where Michael Mckean (David St. Hubbins!) plays a AI CGI Fear clown for some people trapped in hypersleep (not as cool as Cleese being killed by clowns, not by a longshot). It was an intriguing concept, but just couldn't hold a candle to the original series. The original series is just so good, so solid.

I watched the two Spock-falls-in-love episodes back-to-back, This Side of Paradise (with the hippie spores and the dreamy Jill Ireland as Leila Kalomi) and All Our Yesterdays (with the cavewoman-bikini-clad Mariette Hartley as Zarabeth). Both are personal favs because they showed some real depth to Spock and his closing line for each episode is so romantically bittersweet. Both mention vegetarianism. TSoP was unaffected by the new effects, but AOY has adds a final scene where you see the planet's sun explode spectacularly as the Enterprise warps out.

[Drunk Monk]

Screw com badges. I still want a cell phone that looks and sounds exactly like the old school communicator that you flip the antennae screen open.

Startups Battle to Make Star Trek’s Comms Badge a Reality
By Cade Metz 08.20.14 | 11:00 am |

Jesse Robbins won’t show us the wearable device his new startup is building, but he says it was inspired, at least in part, by the Star Trek “communicator badge.” In other words, you wear it on your chest, and when you need instant communication with someone in another location, you press a button and talk into it.

The idea is to create a new and more convenient form of communication for event planners, kitchen workers, and others who need instant access to colleagues while on the job. It may even make sense for everyday consumers, such as parents organizing parties for their kids and friends driving from winery to winery in the Napa Valley.

“It’s for any mobile team that needs to be connected in real-time,” says Robbins, who previously played notable roles in the rise of two hugely important technologies for the modern business, helping to build the infrastructure that underpinned Amazon Web Services and later founding the data-center-automation outfit Chef.
Jesse Robbins.

Jesse Robbins. OnBeep
Known as OnBeep, Robbins’ new wearable startup emerged from stealth mode this morning. Backed by $6.25 million in funding, it joins at least two other companies in the quest to deliver wearable voice communication—yet another example of science fiction driving reality. A company called Theatro offers a wearable communicator that’s now used by employees inside retail stores, and a second outfit—known, appropriately enough, as CommsBadge—is exploring similar territory.

“All of these things are inspired by Star Trek,” says J.P. Gownder, an analyst with tech research outfit Forrester who tracks the burgeoning wearables market. “The idea of creating wearables that aid in communication—though it may not make sense from a consumer angle—can be very useful, particularly in the enterprise.”

Robbins—who has relied on older real-time communication devices while moonlighting as a firefighter and emergency medical technician—believes this new breed of communicator can fill the large gap left by the demise of the Nextel network, which once provided a kind of wide-area walkie-talkie for businesses. As Robbins points out, the rise of the iPhone killed off the Nextel network, but he argues that there’s still an enormous market for a simpler way of instantly communicating with coworkers. “Nextel has left this giant hole,” he says. “We estimate that there are 40 million Americans, in many jobs, that require them to be connected to each other throughout the day.”

Gownder also sees a potential market for these devices, but he rightly points out that they must provide tools that go above and beyond what you can do with the average phone. The Theatro wearable, for instance, lets you very quickly toggle your communications between different types of listeners or track listener location. “They need to offer added intelligence,” he says. “They have to allow people to do things they haven’t done before—and solve real business problems.”

http://www.wired.com/2014/08/startups-ba...a-reality/

BTW, see this?
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[Greg_phpbb3_import1]

KFM press pass?

I always thought the Motorola Razr came the closest to the Communicator.

[Drunk Monk]

been there, done that.

my first cell was a star tac. it flipped and was about the right size, but i want something that looks exactly the same.

[Dr. Ivor Yeti]

My old Blackberry Style worked for me. The one-hand flip opening and intermittent functionality sealed the deal.